The Cool Guy's Guide To Music Festivals

Coachella

Californians know a thing or two when it comes to fighting the good fight. So, it probably doesn't come as a surprise that the Golden State's world-renowned annual music and arts festival known as Coachella owes its humble beginnings to a protest against Ticketmaster and its monopoly on all things live and fun. Back in 1993, over 25,000 fans turned up in Indio -- a smallish town nestled in the heart of the Coachella Valley -- to just say no to the corporate behemoth's appalling infringement on human rights while listening to the sweet sounds of Pearl Jam.

Six years later, and only a short three months after the epic Woodstock '99 revival in Upstate New York, the inaugural Coachella event was underway. Although financial issues plagued the the original two-day festival, which likely led to its one and only cancelation in 2000, Coachella in its current form is one of the largest and most profitable music and arts festivals in the country, spanning six days and two weekends.

The crews that show up are varied, to say the least: mud-covered hippies, frat boys, designer drug kids, foreigners and parents with their children. Sure, it's simultaneously sad and comforting to realize that grunge-era disciples of Eddie Vedder are now more likely to carry around a baby than a blunt, but the eclectic crowd is precisely what drives the mix of music at Coachella.